Interview with Svarttjern

1. Greetings to you, HaaN. From the start, let’s have a look on your relatively new evaluation, you have received. And that’s TNBM mark. What do you think about this thing globally? And what that evaluation means for you and the rest of members in Svarttjern?

Of course it is great for us to be granted the TNBM logo, for us it stands for quality, the other who have played under it have been the bands that were the reason why we wanted to play BM, so to be in their league is of course great. Regarding evaluation, I value some opinions higher that others, think there is a lot of bad reviewers out there, people who have no idea of what they are talking about, but still the reviews so far on Misanthropic have been great, and for us as a band that is of course great.

2. Though the fact that you have started in 2003, if I’m true, first demo came out in 2006 so there was three year break. And debut album followed three years after mentioned demo release. Are you working (as a group) slowly and carefully or you had some troubles in that period during 2003-2006?

Svarttjern was formed in late 2003, we gave out “Blasphemic War” in 2004, then RBS in 2006, we recorded in 2007 a promo which contained three songs with the soul intention of promotion, and getting a record deal. HansFyrste and I are the creators of the band. So far at least, I write most of the music and he takes care of the lyrical. As the band have progressed through the years song-writing and rehearsals come easier.

3. Although I’m mostly skeptic toward releases, which are dedicated to classic black metal conception in his purest form, your music woke in me something more interesting than in previous cases. All the tracks are served with nobleness and snug-clear sound. It’s definitely gives a mirror into a year 2009, cause if I’ll have a look on new Throne of Katarsis release (for example), all of the tracks sounds like from 90’s. I’m not saying this is globally bad, but I’m happy if group sounds like from 21 century. It’s my strange personal opinion, but it’s optimal question for you. So do you think that this “old” sound will not be optimal for your debut? Or are you simply interested in this, maybe “more modern and aggressive” one?

I could´t agree more, none in the bad wanted the old school sound at all, we did´t feel it would represent our music to the fullest, which is the most important thing. With Misanthropic we have finally found our sound.

4. I was very surprised after my first check of “Misanthropic Path of Madness”. It was due to fact that the album is not so long as I thought before. 30 minutes can be sufficient, but many people will have problems with that, because “full length must be long”, haha! I heard that many times, funny. But for me, two or three tracks more will be exactly the best.

The duration of the album is what it is, we are content with a bit over 30 min, quality over quantity, some of the songs on the album is actually two three years old, and we felt that we were in the right place to record our debut album and the material was strong enough. But our next album will be longer that I can promise.

5. As we can see from the titles of majority tracks, most of the names are about world and human in general. Why this themes? Are they more actual and more interesting than pure Satanism or something? Has album some concept?

Hansfyrste lyrics are complex and nothing is, he has his own philosophy both when it comes to the lyrics and life in general, this has much impact on our lyrics and will in the future as well, we use Satan much more as a metaphor in terms of evil that man can relate to, than Satanism as a religion.

6. I heard that you have some problems with cover art, am I right? What kind of countries will censure it? Anyway, why don’t you make a cover, which will be a compromise? Every listener will have his own copy with original and only one cover art…

Yes, that is right, got too strong for a couple of countries, to be honest I have no idea which, think at least Germany and Austria are censoring it, guess Germany wasn´t a big surprise. No, never any compromise with anyone regarding anything with Svarttjern. The album will have a cover card over the original artwork, which after you buy it you can take it out, so it everyone gets the same art-work.7. Do you think that your music will go in same veins as on debut in the future? Are you open-minded for some new influences?

As written before I think we have found our sound, but the next album which is already being made in terms of songwriting will be longer and with that contain much more. But of course things can change, in BM music today much more is “allowed” meaning that you can almost put in elements of other types of music and still label is as BM music so we will see.

8. That’s all from me. I wanted to ask on actual themes about Svarttjern without any tending into sauce around so I hope you are not disappointed. Anyway, hope I’ll see you on this year Inferno festival in Oslo, where we go with my colleague from Czech Republic. Rest of the words are your!

Hope to see you all in Czech Republic some time, and for those of you who purchase our album, I hope that you really listen to it a try and grasp both the lyrics and artwork.